The Vector SDK Hits Alpha

We’ve always strived to make sophisticated—and importantly, relevant—robotics and AI technologies accessible to the masses. We do this partly through the innovative experiences our multidisciplinary team spends endless days and nights crafting. But we also believe it’s important to open up our technologies so developers, researchers, and educators like you can employ them in your own work.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce the public availability of the Vector SDK alpha. It gives you access to Vector’s multitude of hardware and software technologies including:

HD color camera stream

Infrared laser scanner

Face and emotion recognition

High-res color IPS screen

Capacitive touch sensor

Four drop sensors

Hundreds of unique animations

Six-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU)

Custom vision markers

The Vector SDK utilizes Python, a programming language used in everything from machine learning to introductory computer science courses. There are also thousands of third-party libraries Vector can tap into, allowing you to augment his capabilities as you see fit. We recommend visiting the SDK Showcase forum to see what others are doing with the SDK, and sharing your own projects.

The SDK comes with a 3D viewer that presents Vector’s understanding of the world.

On a final note, unlike the launch of the Cozmo SDK which launched in beta form, we released a pre-alpha version of the SDK to those of you who backed our Kickstarter campaign. This alpha release of the SDK would not have been possible without all of your insights and feedback, so an enormous thanks to you all.

The included remote control example program gives you manual control of Vector’s hardware and animations.

We have more coming for the SDK in the new year so be sure to check in for new announcements in the official Anki developer forums.